Instrumentation

Instrumentation

The tambura is the conventional automaton instrument utilized as a part of shows. In any case, tamburas are progressively being supplanted by śruti boxes, and now all the more usually, the electronic tambura. The automaton itself is a necessary piece of exhibitions and outfits dependability – the likeness congruity in Western music.

In a vocal presentation, a show group may have one or more vocalists as the primary entertainer. Instruments, for example, the Saraswati veena or venu woodwind, can be once in a while found as a musical backup, yet more often than not, a vocalist is bolstered by a violin player The cadence accompanist is generally a mridangam player . In any case, other percussion instruments, for example, the ghatam, kanjira and morsing every now and again likewise go with the principle percussion instrument and play in a practically contrapuntal manner alongside the beats.

The target of the going with instruments is much more than taking after the song and keeping the beats. The backups shape a vital part of each arrangement displayed, and they nearly take after and increase the melodic expressions sketched out by the lead vocalist. The vocalist and the violinist alternate while explaining or while displaying innovativeness in segments like raga, niraval and kalpanaswaram.

Not at all like Hindustani music shows, where a going with tabla player can keep beats without taking after the musical expressions now and again, in Carnatic music, the accompanists need to take after the intricacies of the organization since there are percussion components, for example, eduppu in a few creations.

Some shows highlight a decent piece of cooperation with the lead artists and accompanists trading notes, and going with artists anticipating the lead performer's musical expressions.

Format of a Carnatic music concept

Format of a Carnatic music concept

Subsequent to having secured the different parts of manodharma sangeetham, gives now a chance to attempt to acquaint ourselves with the things introduced in a consistent carnatic music show. The present day kutcheri structure, trailed by most performers, is an organization given by the incredible carnatic music vocalist, Shri Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar.

•           Varnam - This is the opening thing of a show. Varnams are creations in various ragas which incorporate both verses (sahithyam) and swaras. Varnam might be rendered in first and second speeds or in a medium pace (known as madhyama kala). From the artiste's perspective, rendering of varnam in the first place of a show, resemble a warm up activity for the throat. It is likewise conceivable that an artiste excludes the varnam and straight away opens the show with some keerthana.

•           Kritis - After the varnam, the artiste goes ahead to render maybe a couple energetic kritis with or with no manodharmam parts. Numerous artistes like to begin with either a kriti on Lord Vinayaka or with organizations in ragas most appropriate for opening a show, as nattai, mayamalava gowlai, hamsadwani, kedaram and so forth. It is conceivable that the artiste sings a brief alapana and few rounds of kalpana swaras moreover.

•              Sub-main item - The artiste for the most part renders a short alapana in the raga of the kriti and after that proceeds onward to sing the creation. The rendering of neraval/kaplanaswara is altogether the artiste's choice.

•           Chauka kala kriti - A moderate interpretation of some magnificent and great sytheses of renowned writers with or without raga alapana. Eg., Dikshithar's kamalamba nava varnam and navagraha kirtanas, Shyama Sastri's sytheses like Mayamma, O Jagadamba

•           Main thing - The principle thing involves an extensive alapana of the raga, trailed by version of the kriti, neraval took after by swarakalpana. A few artistes may render RTP as the fundamental thing in which case the sub-principle thing is taken up for a more drawn out span. Before finishing up the fundamental piece, the artiste gives an open door for the percussionists to showcase their ability, in flawless adherence to the tala and this is alluded to as the 'thani aavarthanam'

•           Thukkada - The melodies sung after the fundamental thing are all ordinarily alluded to as "thukkadas" signifying 'goodies'. This section comprises of tunes in lighter ragas (behag, maund, desh, kaapi, yamuna kalyani, sindhu bhairavi, bageshri, revathi and so on) and have an exceptionally famous claim among a wide range of rasikas. Nowadays, abhangs have turned into an exceptionally famous number in the thukkada section. Ragamalika structures, bhajans, Bharathiyar melodies, padams, javalis, and thillanas are some of things that can go under this classification.

•           Mangalam - The show is finished up with 'mangalam', a thing which symbolizes promise and prosperity of all. Mangalam is for the most part sung in ragas like madhyamavathi, saurashtram or suruti

Compositions of Carnatic Music

Compositions of Carnatic Music

The tunes are alluded to as kritis or keerthanams. A considerable lot of these organizations are a couple of hundreds of years old. The most vital of the authors are Saint Thyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar and Syama Shastri, who are together called 'The Trinity'. They lived in the eighteenth century and introduced another period in the historical backdrop of Carnatic music through the assortment and differences in their pieces. There are various other unmistakable arrangers whose sytheses are similarly important. Purandara Dasa, Annamacharya, Arunachala Kavi, Bhadrachala Ramadas, Oothukkadu Venkata Kavi, Maharaja Swati Thirunal, Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bhagavatar, Papanasam Sivan, Gopalakrishna Bharathi and the rundown goes on. Typically the organizations are in South Indian dialects like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Sanskrit. Every so often a Hindi Bhajan or a Marati Abhag is additionally sung towards the end of a show.

More about the format of a Carnatic music concept

• Varnam
• Kritis
• Sub-main item
• Chauka kala kriti
• Main item
• Thukkada
• Mangalam

After having covered the various aspects of manodharma sangeetham, lets now try to familiarize ourselves with the items presented in a regular carnatic music concert.  The present day kutcheri structure, followed by most musicians, is a format given by the legendary carnatic music vocalist, Shri Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar.  

Important elements of Carnatic music

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Sruti

Śruti commonly refers to musical pitch. It is the approximate equivalent of a tonic (or less precisely a key) in Western music; it is the note from which all the others are derived. It is also used in the sense of graded pitches in anoctave. While there are an infinite number of sounds falling within a scale (or raga) in Carnatic music, the number that can be distinguished by auditory perception is twenty-two (although over the years, several of them have converged). In this sense, while sruti is determined by auditory perception, it is also an expression in the listener's mind.

Swara

Swara refers to a type of musical sound that is a single note, which defines a relative (higher or lower) position of a note, rather than a defined frequency. Swaras also refer to the solfege of Carnatic music, which consist of seven notes, "sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni" (compare with the Hindustani sargam: sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni or Western do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti). These names are abbreviations of the longer names shadja, rishabha, gandhara, madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada. Unlike other music systems, every member of the solfege (called a swara) has three variants. The exceptions are the drone notes, shadja and panchama (also known as the tonic and the dominant), which have only one form; and madhyama (the subdominant), which has two forms. A 7th century stone inscription in Kudumiyan Malai in Tamil Nadu shows vowel changes to solfege symbols with ra, ri, ru etc. to denote the higher quarter-tones. In one scale, or raga, there is usually only one variant of each note present. The exceptions exist in "light" ragas, in which, for artistic effect, there may be two, one ascending (in the arohanam) and another descending (in the avarohanam).

Raga system

A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for building a melody – very similar to the Western concept of mode. It specifies rules for movements up (aarohanam) and down (avarohanam), thescale of which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more sparingly, which notes may be sung with gamaka (ornamentation), which phrases should be used or avoided, and so on. In effect, it is a series of obligatory musical events which must be observed, either absolutely or with a particular frequency.

In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas (those with all seven notes in their scales) are classified into a system called the melakarta, which groups them according to the kinds of notes that they have. There are seventy-two melakarta ragas, thirty six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is shuddha (perfect fourth from the tonic), the remaining thirty-six of whose madhyama (subdominant) is prati (anaugmented fourth from the tonic). The ragas are grouped into sets of six, called chakras ("wheels", though actually segments in the conventional representation) grouped according to the supertonic andmediant scale degrees. There is a system known as the katapayadi sankhya to determine the names of melakarta ragas.

Ragas may be divided into two classes: janaka ragas (i.e. melakarta or parent ragas) and janya ragas (descendant ragas of a particular janaka raga). Janya ragas are themselves subclassified into various categories.

Tala system

Tala refers to a fixed time cycle or metre, set for a particular composition, which is built from groupings of beats. Talas have cycles of a defined number of beats and rarely change within a song. They have specific components, which in combinations can give rise to the variety to exist (over 108), allowing different compositions to have different rhythms.

Carnatic music singers usually keep the beat by moving their hands up and down in specified patterns, and using their fingers simultaneously to keep time. Tala is formed with three basic parts (calledangas) which are laghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam, though complex talas may have other parts like plutam, guru, and kaakapaadam. There are seven basic tala groups which can be formed from thelaghu, dhrtam, and anudhrtam:

•           Ata tala

•           Dhruva tala

•           Eka tala

•           Jhampa tala

•           Matya tala

•           Rupaka tala

•           Triputa tala

A laghu has five variants (called jaathis) based on the counting pattern. Five jaathis times seven tala groups gives thirty-five basic talas, although use of other angas results in a total of 108 talas.

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History of Carnatic Music

Traditional south indian classical music also called karnataka sangeetham

Theorigin of Carnatic music , or the South Indian classical music often called as karnataka sangitham can be traced back to the age of vedas . Bharata's Natya Sastra , from around the 5th century A.D. , and Saranga Deva's Sangita Ratnakara , from the early13th century A.D. , are considered the to be the earliest recorded documents available on the theory and performance of Indian classical music, especially carnatic music (karnataka sangeetham) . The history of Carnatic music or karnataka sangeetham is incomplete without stating about the contributions made by the saints Sri Purandharadasaru ( 15th century A.D.) , Sri Thyagarajar , Sri Shyama Sastri ( all of 18th century A.D.) , and left an enduring legacy of compositions. This tradition has a rich heritage and is perfectly attuned with Indian culture and religion. Carnatic music is based on a 22 scale note (swaras) on contrary to the earlier 12 note scale that is used in the western classical music. But in all its practical aspects and puposes, not more than 16 notes are generally used. 

A unique combination of these notes , or swara as they are said to evolves separate ragas. The features and the constraints of a raga will be clearly defined in the arrangement of the notes in its arohanam ( ascending notes ) and avarohanam ( descending notes ). Thus , in Carnatic music , the raga connotes a mood or a route in which the music is supposed to travel. . Different combinations of the notes gives rise to different raga . Thus , there are thousands of unique raga as per theory though very few of them are being used for performances in the present day. gamaka and brighaa are the two most important features of the ragaa. The former refers to the modulation of the frequency of a particular swara and the latter refers to the speed with which the musician performs a set of swaras or notes. Both the gamaka and the brigha helps to improve the appeal of the composition that is rendered . Western music is often based ona pattern of flat notes, on the contrary, here , the swaras are performed using various modulations . The brigha could be often 8 , 16 or so on . Another very important aspect of the Carnatic music or karnataka sangeetham is the thalam or the rhythm. The thalam is the rhythm of the piece that is being performed . Today, there exists more than hundred thalams , but here also, very few of them are in use . The most popular thalam have three , four , five, seven or eight beats in them.

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